Are you still there? —

Facebook may create a passive location-logging app

A new app is in the works to track users' whereabouts.

Facebook is planning an app that tracks the location of users, according to a report from Bloomberg. The feature would be able to run on a handset even when the app isn’t open, and it may be used to help the company target ads based on location.

Both Google and Apple have created location-logging and -broadcasting apps (Latitude and Find My Friends, respectively). While they’re fine for use with close friends, it hasn’t exactly become de rigueur to casually broadcast one’s location to vast swaths of people at once. Facebook check-ins are one thing; a real-time homing beacon is something else.

According to Bloomberg, Facebook may use not only locations, but also “daily habits” of users’ travels on this great green earth to feed them targeted ads (or more likely, the somewhat less invasive promoted and sponsored posts).

It’s not hard to imagine Facebook is already doing this based on check-ins. But if the feature can provide a constant feed of visited locations, or even better, locations where the user is passing by without patronizing, the advertising opportunities may prove tempting for local businesses or chains that want to poach from each other.

An app that passively logs locations and sends them to Facebook’s servers makes us nervous. We can only hope that an on/off switch in Facebook’s privacy controls accompanies any eventual rollout.

Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics. Twitter@caseyjohnston

It seems the reasons to have a Facebook account are becoming fewer and far between in light of each new "enhancement" they are looking to incorporate in the site and their apps. Maybe they should name the new feature "stalker".

All this investment they put into getting more revenue out of their mobile users but never seem to care to make the actual user experience any better. Their bloated android app is constantly bug ridden. I would love to move away from facebook but then I'd have zero contact with my friends oversees.

I am just waiting for Google glasses like Facebook camera that I would need to wear everywhere so that Facebook can see what I see and "Like" what ever I paused on for more than 2 blinks of my eye.Just cut the chase and start working for it Facebook

Apple is already doing something of this kind for GPS assist databases and other things of the like. While I am not completely unconcerned by this, Apple, primarily, makes money by selling me boxes, not by vacuuming up my info and selling it off in various, sometimes skeevy, ways.

Google is in the middle. They make Android which would have much overlap with Apple for "above the board" uses of location. They also provide a some useful services that require my location(maps) but are deff not above the skeevyness.

Facebook... If Facebook where to be known or found to be doing anything of this kind, any Android user(to the best of my knowledge Android does not have per app location settings) should delete Facebook's app right away.

Is Facebook just trying its best to chase away its entire customer base? Everyone's getting fidgety about privacy lately, and their site's direction just isn't catering to that at all.

Umm, define everyone for us please.

Stop using "you" in place of "everyone" given that billion's of Facebook users, seemingly, don't give a flying fuck about their privacy!

At this point, get over yourself. YOU very clearly are not Facebook's customer. No mater how much you cry about privacy. Billions of users have proven that their privacy isn't an issue. Like it or not.

At this point, get over yourself. YOU very clearly are not Facebook's customer. No mater how much you cry about privacy. Billions of users have proven that their privacy isn't an issue. Like it or not.

At this point, get over yourself. YOU very clearly are not Facebook's customer. No mater how much you cry about privacy. Billions of users have proven that their privacy isn't an issue. Like it or not.

At this point, get over yourself. YOU very clearly are not Facebook's customer. No mater how much you cry about privacy. Billions of users have proven that their privacy isn't an issue. Like it or not.

Bad day at the office?

Ignoring the ranting, I do think he has a point. Facebook's business model is to trade privacy for other perks in life. Most users will make sure to limit the amount being traded, some users don't care at all, and others will refuse altogether. The third group is obviously the most upset at this story, but they're also not Facebook's customer base.

I knew I had a good reason not to install the Facebook app on my iOS devices. I have Facebook for family sharing and contact with overseas family and friends. I will only have Facebook on my desktop machine and not on my mobile devices. I don’t need to be followed by stalkers/ the Borg.

At this point, get over yourself. YOU very clearly are not Facebook's customer. No mater how much you cry about privacy. Billions of users have proven that their privacy isn't an issue. Like it or not.

Bad day at the office?

Ignoring the ranting, I do think he has a point. Facebook's business model is to trade privacy for other perks in life. Most users will make sure to limit the amount being traded, some users don't care at all, and others will refuse altogether. The third group is obviously the most upset at this story, but they're also not Facebook's customer base.

At this point, get over yourself. YOU very clearly are not Facebook's customer. No mater how much you cry about privacy. Billions of users have proven that their privacy isn't an issue. Like it or not.

Bad day at the office?

Ignoring the ranting, I do think he has a point. Facebook's business model is to trade privacy for other perks in life. Most users will make sure to limit the amount being traded, some users don't care at all, and others will refuse altogether. The third group is obviously the most upset at this story, but they're also not Facebook's customer base.

There is another element here too though - batterilife on your handset. THAT could make a fair number of people uninstall an app.

All this investment they put into getting more revenue out of their mobile users but never seem to care to make the actual user experience any better. Their bloated android app is constantly bug ridden. I would love to move away from facebook but then I'd have zero contact with my friends oversees.

I have sent about 50 times as many messages to family and friends with Whatsapp in 1 month than I ever did with Facebook in 2 years.

It's not the group experience some people are after, but much more to my liking. More and more so every time I read stuff like this.

Facebook... If Facebook where to be known or found to be doing anything of this kind, any Android user(to the best of my knowledge Android does not have per app location settings) should delete Facebook's app right away.

IF you can delete it. On both my smartphones, Facebook is a carrier-installed app that cannot be completely removed. It can be disabled on the newer one with Jelly Bean, but not on the Gingerbread-equipped one.

I could see Facebook negotiating with the carriers for mandatory must carry of their location app alongside Facebook itself and Messenger.

And yes, I'm aware of "rooting" but how many Android users really do that? There's no program that can root my weird Galaxy S variant that I've found, and I don't think it's at all easy on my new Droid DNA.

This kind of thing always makes me think "Maybe it's finally time I delete my Facebook account - all it is is a load of pictures of vomiting babies/vomiting adults/food that people have made that looks like vomit anyway."

Will this be caught by a permissions change in Android?i.e. will users have to upgrade their facebook version?

I can downgrade my facebook app to the pre-installed version (and probably will, since I'm running out of space and the new features are just bloat to me). But will this stop them logging my location?I've got no idea if the current (or older) face book apps allowed it to access my location.I'm guessing it's already allowed so that you can post your location on a photo or something, so Facebook already has access to the location data on my phone.In which case, I'm gonna have to root this bastard (not easy since bootloader is permalocked).

I would love to move away from facebook but then I'd have zero contact with my friends oversees.

Why? No skype, no email, no chat? Is it really contact to like their party pictures? Or are they the kind of friends where you don't want to invest that much dedicated communication time? If so, is it really worth being exploited by FB to stay "in touch" with them?

I understand there's a certain "out of the loop" problem for some people, especially the younger ones, because all group communication seems to be happening on FB. Then again, I always think if there's a party happening and none of the people told me in person or sent me a text, is that really my group?

Well, maybe I'm just too old (b. 1978). I grew up in the former Eastern Bloc and we didn't even have a phone until I was 18. Yet, I feel we had more communication going on. Nobody got left behind, word-of-mouth worked. Perhaps because we still taked.

I would love to move away from facebook but then I'd have zero contact with my friends oversees.

Why? No skype, no email, no chat? Is it really contact to like their party pictures? Or are they the kind of friends where you don't want to invest that much dedicated communication time? If so, is it really worth being exploited by FB to stay "in touch" with them?

I totally get obzilla's point though. I live abroad as well and FB really helps staying in touch with some friends and family members. Just don't mistake "staying in touch" for a replacement of contact you can have with other media. Even though the info/events/pictures you can see flowing by from people you know are often trivial, they do help to maintain some kind of mental picture and relation with that person and they lower the treshhold for spontaneuous communication. That's how I'd experience it anyway. I have quite some contact with many of my cousins through FB whereas otherwise I hardly ever would have just picked up the phone to give them a call.

jasonvalhalla wrote:

I understand there's a certain "out of the loop" problem for some people, especially the younger ones, because all group communication seems to be happening on FB. Then again, I always think if there's a party happening and none of the people told me in person or sent me a text, is that really my group?Well, maybe I'm just too old (b. 1978). I grew up in the former Eastern Bloc and we didn't even have a phone until I was 18. Yet, I feel we had more communication going on. Nobody got left behind, word-of-mouth worked. Perhaps because we still taked.

So true. Access to media and social networks is not the equivalent of communication. It's like that paradox of housing. The closer housing units are to each other (like apartment blocks) the less we seem to know each other.

Is Facebook just trying its best to chase away its entire customer base? Everyone's getting fidgety about privacy lately, and their site's direction just isn't catering to that at all.

Umm, define everyone for us please.

Stop using "you" in place of "everyone" given that billion's of Facebook users, seemingly, don't give a flying fuck about their privacy!

Also what do you mean by "privacy", exactly?

Facebook or Google doesn't know really anything about me, and like you said, I don't give a flying f... about "privacy" if it means some adversiting software somewhere "knowing" my "interests" (or Likes, whatever) to serve some random ads.

At this point, get over yourself. YOU very clearly are not Facebook's customer. No mater how much you cry about privacy. Billions of users have proven that their privacy isn't an issue. Like it or not.

All this investment they put into getting more revenue out of their mobile users but never seem to care to make the actual user experience any better. Their bloated android app is constantly bug ridden. I would love to move away from facebook but then I'd have zero contact with my friends oversees.

It’s not hard to imagine Facebook is already doing this based on check-ins. But if the feature can provide a constant feed of visited locations, or even better, locations where the user is passing by without patronizing, the advertising opportunities may prove tempting for local businesses or chains that want to poach from each other.

What you are describing here is technically impossible with today's hardware (and also with all hardware in the foreseeable future).

It is impossible to accurately track someone's location without slaughtering battery life. Your phone will not even make it to lunchtime if there is an app tracking your location that closely (I know this, because I have written a smartphone app that does exactly that, and you really can only run it while plugged into a car charger).

What you can do is figure out which city/suburb someone is in, and maybe what part of the suburb. But you can't track any closer than that. A rough idea of someone's location is useful, but not very invasive privacy wise. Anybody who knows what suburb I live/work in can figure that much out already.

Latitude and Find My Friends do not track you continuously, they only track you occasionally (when someone actually does a location lookup).

Facebook is already doing this and they have been for a while. Every time I start FB on my android, the GPS icon flashes on for a few seconds. They're gathering your location every time you start the app.

I use FB because I have a far-flung network of family and friends. I'll have to find a substitute because the current content seems mostly to be ads that my friends have "liked" and the only way to keep FB from telling burglars I'm away is to use it only by VPN "from home." {sigh}